Case 326: Cooper Harris

*** Content warnings: Child victim *** When doting mother Leanna Harris arrived to pick up her 22-month-old son Cooper Harris from daycare in Atlanta, Georgia, on June 18 2014, she was shocked to find that Cooper wasn’t there. She soon discovered that her husband, Ross Harris, had made a fatal mistake, leaving Cooper to die in the backseat of his hot car after forgetting to drop him off on his way to work. As details about Cooper’s death emerged, many questions arose. Was this another innocent family who had fallen victim to the phenomenon known as Forgotten Baby Syndrome, or was something more sinister at play? --- Narration – Anonymous Host https://www.instagram.com/caseys.snaps/ Research & writing – Elsha McGill Creative direction – Milly Raso Production & music – Mike Migas http://mikemigas.com/ Audio editing – Anthony Telfer Sign up for Casefile Premium: Apple Premium https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/casefile-true-crime/id998568017?ign-itscg=30200S&ign-itsct=casefile_podcastsSpotify Premium https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/9gSwcv7USsbPatreon https://www.patreon.com/casefileFor all credits and sources, please visit https://casefilepodcast.com/case-326-cooper-harris Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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  Our episodes deal with serious and often distressing incidents. If you feel at any time you need support, please contact your local crisis center. For suggested phone numbers for confidential support and for a more detailed list of content warnings, please see the show notes for this episode on your app or on our website. Today's episode involves crimes against children and won't be suitable for all listeners.

• 2:28Speaker 00

  Thirty-year-old Leanna Harris was nearing the end of her workday on Wednesday, June 18, 2014, when at 3:16pm she received a text message. It was from her husband, 33-year-old Justin Harris, who went by his middle name of Ross. "When are you getting my buddy the message read?"

• 2:50Speaker 00

  Ross was referring to the couple's son, 22-month-old Cooper Harris, who needed to be picked up from daycare. The couple typically took turns dropping Cooper off and picking him up, depending on whose schedule worked best at the time. Ross had dropped him off that morning as Leanna had an early start in her job as a dietitian. It was agreed that Leanna would pick Cooper up because Ross had plans to go to the movies with friends after work to see the comedy-action film 22 Jump Street.

• 3:24Speaker 00

  Leanna clocked off at 4pm and made the one-hour drive to the Little Apron Academy in Vinnings, Georgia. The childcare facility was custom-built for employees at the Home Depot's Atlanta headquarters, where Ross Harris worked as a web developer. It was conveniently located just five-and-a-half miles from the Harris's home in the city of Marietta and right around the corner from Ross's work. Cooper had been a regular attendee at the Little Apron Academy since he was about six weeks old, where the staff had come to know the Harris family well. Leanna had done the daycare run countless times,

• 4:06Speaker 00

  but when she entered the building on this occasion, Cooper's teacher looked surprised to see her. "What are you doing here?" the teacher asked. Leanna was confused. "I'm here to get Cooper," she responded. The teacher looked at her with a puzzled expression on her face and said, "Cooper's not here."

• 4:29Speaker 00

  It took Leanna a moment to register what she was hearing. Assuming it was some kind of twisted joke, she asked, "No, really, where is Cooper?" But the teacher looked her square in the eye and firmly repeated, "He's not here."

• 4:48Speaker 00

  Leanna didn't know what to think. She was immediately overcome with fear as all kinds of scenarios flooded through her mind. What if someone had kidnapped Cooper? What if Ross had absentmindedly left him at home that morning by mistake? A daycare employee offered to drive with Leanna to Ross's office building around the corner. When they got to the Home Depot parking lot, Leanna couldn't see Ross's car anywhere.

• 5:18Speaker 00

  Panicked, Leanna raced into the office building, desperately trying to call Ross as she ran. He didn't answer his phone, and the security guard in the lobby told her that Ross had already left work for the day.

• 5:33Speaker 00

  Leanna sat in the lobby as she contemplated what to do next. Then, her phone rang. It was a detective. He asked Leanna where she was and told her to stay put, saying he was coming to see her. "It's bad, right?" Leanna asked him. "Yes," the detective replied. "It's bad."

• 6:23Speaker 00

  Approximately half an hour earlier, at 4:24pm, police officers had pulled into the parking lot at the Acres Mill Square Shopping Centre, roughly two miles from the Home Depot headquarters, to find a troubling scene. A silver Hyundai Tucson SUV was parked haphazardly on the curb, with a crowd gathered around looking at something on the pavement. It was the body of 22-month-old Cooper Harris. His skin a bluish-green, and his veins clearly visible under his pale skin. His father, Ross Harris, was pacing nervously nearby, his cellphone pressed to his ear, as a good Samaritan unsuccessfully attempted CPR on the small boy.

• 7:09Speaker 00

  "What have I done?" Ross screamed. "What have I done?" "I killed my son."

• 7:18Speaker 00

  One of the officers stepped in and took over the resuscitation attempt, but it was clear that Cooper had been deceased for some time.

• 7:27Speaker 00

  Ross came closer, shrieking hysterically: "Oh my god, oh my god." One of the officers asked Ross to get off the phone and show them some ID. He told them to hold on. When they asked him again, he snapped: "Shut the fuck up and hold on, my son just died." This reaction prompted the police to place Ross in handcuffs and put him into the back of a patrol car to ensure he didn't flee the scene. He promised to calm down if they just removed the cuffs, saying: "You have to understand, I'm just really upset."

• 8:09Speaker 00

  Ross told the police he needed to call the Little Apron Academy before his wife arrived to find Cooper wasn't there. One of the officers asked why she would think her son was there. Ross responded: "Because I was supposed to drop him off this morning, and I didn't do a second look in my car, and left him in my car while I was at work. I swore I dropped him off, I thought I did."

• 8:41Speaker 00

  Ross Harris was taken to the police station where he explained to two interviewing detectives that the morning had started out like any other. Cooper had been having trouble sleeping over the past few nights and had woken up early at around 5:15 AM. Ross got up and brought him into bed with him and Leanna, where they all snoozed until Leanna left for work at around 7:15. Ross and Cooper then got up and watched cartoons until it was time to leave for the day. Ross typically dropped Cooper at daycare in time for breakfast, but they were running late, so he decided they'd have a daddy-son meal at the Chick-fil-A restaurant near his work instead.

• 9:27Speaker 00

  Ross ordered breakfast from there most days, usually from the drive-thru, but every couple of weeks he brought Cooper along with him and they dined in.

• 9:38Speaker 00

  Ross said that after eating breakfast, he strapped Cooper into his car seat and kissed him like he always did. He then pulled onto Cumberland Parkway and headed towards the Little Apron Academy, but instead of turning left at the upcoming intersection like he was supposed to, he must have continued straight towards his office. Ross said that Cooper didn't make a sound, so he must have fallen asleep, and Ross had completely forgotten he was there. He parked in Home Depot's surface parking lot and proceeded to work a normal seven-hour shift, going out for lunch with some friends before knocking off to go to the movies.

• 10:23Speaker 00

  Ross admonished himself for not checking the backseat before he went into work that morning. He told the detectives that he knew how dangerous a hot car could be for a small child, ever since he'd seen a news report about a man who accidentally did the same thing. That man had since become an advocate for parents to always turn around and double-check the backseat.

• 10:48Speaker 00

  Ross explained: "I've been doing that because the worst fear for me is to leave my son in a hot car."

• 10:57Speaker 00

  He said he'd also watched an online video about the dangers of leaving dogs inside hot cars, and it had made him think about how terrible it would be for a child.

• 11:09Speaker 00

  When asked about his relationship with Leanna, Ross said it was good, with its typical ups and downs. He said their finances were solid, other than some student debt from their college days. The detectives told Ross that Leanna had been notified about what happened and was at the station. They needed to go speak with her, and in the meantime, they told Ross he'd be held in a cell. Ross asked why. The detectives explained that because his actions led to Cooper's death, he was going to be charged, most likely with cruelty to a child.

• 11:50Speaker 00

  Ross seemed shocked. "It was completely unintentional," he stated. "I have no history of child abuse, no history of domestic violence. I have no criminal history. I have no record whatsoever. I've worked in a law enforcement environment. I'm a great father, and I have multiple people who would back that up."

• 12:16Speaker 00

  Ross wasn't exaggerating. The thirty-three-year-old had a clean background. He'd been raised in the Alabama city of Tuscaloosa, where he'd held various jobs at the University of Alabama before working as a police dispatcher for several years. He'd met Leanna when he was twenty-three, and the two quickly fell in love and got married. Leanna was introverted and earnest, whereas Ross was extroverted and outgoing. Together, they brought out the best of each other's personalities. Ross helped to bring Leanna out of her shell, while Leanna motivated Ross to reach his potential and encouraged him to go back to school.

• 13:00Speaker 00

  He went on to get a bachelor's degree in Commerce and Business Administration, which led to his job at Home Depot. The couple relocated to Atlanta in 2012, where Ross lived an active social life and played guitar in their church band. Life was going well for the couple, but there was just one thing missing. From a very young age, the one thing Leanna wanted was to be a wife and mother. Likewise, Ross wanted children so badly that his work colleagues even referred to him as Soccer Dad. After months of trying, in early 2012, the couple got the good news they'd been desperately hoping for.

• 13:45Speaker 00

  Leanna was pregnant. Ross was so excited that he uploaded a video of their first ultrasound to his YouTube account, along with the caption: "First video known as Cooper."

• 14:01Speaker 00

  When Cooper was born on Sunday, August 12, 2012, holding him for the first time was the best feeling in the world for Leanna. As the couple navigated their way through the first few exhausting months of parenting a fussy baby, Leanna was impressed with how well Ross stepped into his new role. He was a dedicated, hands-on father who never hesitated to get up in the night to put Cooper back to sleep. The father and son developed a special bond with the young boy's blue eyes lighting up every time Ross walked into the room. Cooper grew to be a happy, smiley, and thriving baby.

• 14:43Speaker 00

  By the time his second birthday was approaching, he'd developed an adventurous personality and a love for cars of all kinds.

• 14:53Speaker 00

  Everyone who knew Ross Harris described him as a "nice, well-mannered man who was a great husband, supportive friend, and devoted father". He gushed about Cooper so much that one colleague even told him that people were sick of hearing about the baby. Therefore, as the news spread about Cooper's death, there could only be one explanation for those who knew the Harris family. This was a tragic accident that couldn't have happened to less deserving people. And it wouldn't be the first time.

• 15:31Speaker 00

  According to the not-for-profit organisation Kids and Car Safety, an average of around 40 young children die in the US each year after being left in a hot car. While some of those deaths occur due to criminal negligence or after a caregiver, uneducated on the dangers, decides to leave a child in the car while they work or attend an appointment, a majority of caregivers simply forget that their child is in the car. It is such a common phenomenon that it has its own name: Forgotten Baby Syndrome.

• 16:08Speaker 00

  As Associate Professor of Law Erica Brightfold explained in her article about the phenomenon for the Berkeley Journal of Criminal Law, "Part of the reason parents can forget their children in the car is because of where the children are placed in a vehicle. Children, especially those under the age of three, are almost always in a rear-facing car seat. Consequently, when a parent looks behind them in the back seat, whether or not the child is in the car, they see the same thing: the back of the child's car seat, not the child." Because many young children fall asleep during car rides, there are often no audio cues

• 16:52Speaker 00

  to remind a caregiver of their presence in the vehicle. Parents, who are often sleep-deprived in those early years, have nothing to remind them that a child is in the back seat except their own memory. On a warm day, the internal temperature of a vehicle rises rapidly, even when the windows are partially open. A child's body heat also rises up to five times faster than an adult. If a child is left in a hot car, it doesn't take long before they become hypothermic and their organs begin to shut down. On the day Cooper Harris died, the external temperature had reached 86 degrees Fahrenheit,

• 17:36Speaker 00

  or 30 degrees Celsius, by midday. It was estimated that the inside of Ross's vehicle could have reached around 100 degrees Fahrenheit, or 38 degrees Celsius, by 1:00 p.m., and that Cooper was likely dead by then. Scratches on the young boy's face, as well as small abrasions on his head, hands, and feet, indicated he had struggled as he became increasingly uncomfortable. The medical examiner said he likely experienced nausea, headache, anxiety, and possible seizures before succumbing to heat stroke.

• 18:15Speaker 00

  It is a common misconception that only a negligent parent could accidentally leave their child in a hot car. The unfortunate reality is that it could happen to anyone. Neurologists who have studied forgotten baby syndrome have found that these incidents typically occur when the brain's prospective memory system, which is responsible for reminding us to do things, goes into conflict with the brain's habit memory system, which is the part of our brain that runs on autopilot. When tensions arise between these two systems, often due to stress, fatigue, external events, or a change in routine, the habit memory can take over.

• 18:57Speaker 00

  If a parent's usual routine is to drive to work alone and there are no cues to remind them that the child is in the car, they might drive to work on autopilot without ever dropping the child where they are supposed to go. The brain is then capable of creating a false memory, leading the parent to believe that they dropped their child off safely. Journalist Jean Weingarten wrote about the phenomenon in a Pulitzer Prize-winning article for The Washington Post titled "Fatal Distraction." After looking into various cases and statistics involving children left in hot cars, Jean concluded:

• 19:40Speaker 00

  What kind of person forgets a baby? The wealthy do, it turns out, and the poor, and the middle class. Parents of all ages and ethnicities do. Mothers are just as likely to do it as fathers. It happens to the chronically absent-minded, and to the fanatically organised, to the college-educated, and to the marginally literate. Last year, it happened three times in one day, the worst day so far, in the worst year so far, in a phenomenon that gives no sign of abating.

• 20:21Speaker 00

  It therefore caused public outrage when it was announced that Ross Harris was being charged not only with second-degree child cruelty, but with Cooper's murder. People who knew the Harris family, as well as total strangers, immediately came to Ross's defence. Two petitions were launched urging authorities to release Ross and to drop the charges. Concerned citizens said Ross had suffered enough and should not be punished for an innocent lapse in memory. Other parents whose children had died as a result of forgotten baby syndrome also came out in support of Ross, with one of his friends writing on one of the petitions:

• 21:06Speaker 00

  "Ross is an incredible friend, he's always the first to help when tragedy strikes others, so I am returning the favour." Another said: "I've known Ross for over ten years, and he is a selfless man who loved people and loved his family more."

• 21:26Speaker 00

  But from the moment police arrived on the scene outside the Acres Mill Square Shopping Centre, they didn't feel like this was a typical hot car death.

• 21:37Speaker 00

  Straight off the bat was the unusual positioning of Cooper's car seat. Unlike most hot car deaths where the child was in a rear-facing seat either directly behind the driver's seat or passenger seat, Cooper's rear-facing seat was in the middle. This placed him just inches from the driver's seat, right near Ross's elbow. It was hard for the police to imagine that Ross could have looked to his right without seeing him there. Furthermore, when crime scene examiners entered the car, they were hit with a distinct odour that they knew to be the smell of death. They could also smell Cooper's urine-soaked diaper.

• 22:21Speaker 00

  It seemed unimaginable that Ross could have driven the two miles from his work to Acres Mill Square without noticing the odour and investigating its source. Not only that, but Cooper's autopsy confirmed that he was 33 inches tall.

• 22:39Speaker 00

  The height limit for his car seat was 30 inches, and by Cooper's age, most parents had already opted to put their children in forward-facing seats.

• 22:50Speaker 00

  Then, there was Ross's reaction at the scene. Passersby who had seen Ross pull Cooper from his car found it strange that he placed the child's body on the hot pavement and stopped attempting CPR after just a couple of compressions. It seemed even stranger that he walked away from Cooper and immediately got on his cellphone while others stepped in to try and help his son. Curiously, Ross didn't call emergency services, but instead tried calling Cooper's daycare so that they could alert Leanna. Witnesses and police thought his reaction looked staged. One minute, he was shrieking hysterically, the next, he was completely calm.

• 23:36Speaker 00

  While he appeared to be crying, he didn't shed any actual tears. One officer described Ross's behaviour as very random and very odd, while another thought that his yelling seemed monotonous and forced.

• 23:52Speaker 00

  Things just got stranger once Ross was placed in the police car. Despite having found his son dead in a hot car just minutes earlier, Ross immediately started complaining about how hot it was, even though the air conditioning was on. He also complained that the handcuffs were hurting him and asked for them to be released. At no point did he ask to see Cooper, or mention him at all.

• 24:21Speaker 00

  Dashcam footage captured Ross as he alternated between sitting calmly and wailing, "Oh my god, what have I done? My boy, what have I done?" At one point, he looked directly into the camera. Then, on the drive to the police station, Ross engaged in casual chit-chat with the officer who detained him. He asked her how long she had been in law enforcement and made comments about how the handcuffs their department used were different to the ones he had seen while working for the police in Alabama.

• 24:58Speaker 00

  This casual conversation coming from a man who had just lost a child under horrific circumstances made the officer uncomfortable.

• 25:07Speaker 00

  This erratic behaviour continued once Ross was put into the interrogation room. During the fourteen-minute wait before the interviewing detectives arrived, video cameras captured Ross sitting calmly. Every now and then, his calm demeanor would give way to a brief moment of dry-eyed crying, wailing, or heavy breathing, interspersed with erratic yells of "Oh God, my boy, why?" At one point, he started pacing around the room, rubbing his eyes and huffing. One of the detectives who was watching Ross on the camera thought he looked like he was trying to make himself hyperventilate.

• 25:51Speaker 00

  When Leanna was taken in to see him, Ross started talking about how scared he was of going to prison. "All I can think about is that jail cell," he said, specifying he was particularly worried about the hard bed and the metal toilet. He also asked what would happen if he lost his job. To the investigators, these seemed like strange concerns for a man who had just lost his son to a slow and painful death. Stranger still, Ross had told Leanna that when he pulled Cooper from the vehicle, he "dreaded" how he would look.

• 26:30Speaker 00

  Not only did investigators find it concerning that Ross had used the past tense, but Ross told Leanna that Cooper's eyes had been closed and he looked at peace. First responders at the scene said that Cooper's eyes had actually been open.

• 26:49Speaker 00

  When Ross was taken to a holding cell after being informed he was being arrested for murder, his cellmate also found his demeanor to be inconsistent with someone who had just lost a child. Instead of seeming sad or upset, he appeared calm and nonchalant.

• 27:10Speaker 00

  While the members of law enforcement who crossed paths with Ross Harris that day were aware that everyone responds very differently in moments of grief, they all agreed that Ross’s reaction was completely out of the norm. Their suspicions only grew after viewing CCTV footage taken from the day Cooper died. The footage from Chick-fil-A showed Ross holding a happy Cooper in his arms as they ordered their breakfast and chatted to the manager. After finishing eating, they then headed to the Home Depot parking lot. Ross claimed that Cooper must have fallen asleep during this drive,

• 27:51Speaker 00

  but it was only a four-minute journey, leading some investigators to question the validity of his claim. At 9:24 a.m., the grainy footage captured Ross as he parked his Tucson in a spot in the back corner of the lot, a considerable distance from the security cameras. There was a parked car on one side of his vehicle and a grassy patch on the other. Ross sat in the car for around 30 seconds before walking into his office building carrying a Chick-fil-A cup and his work bag. Throughout the day, various people passed the Tucson without noticing Cooper inside.

• 28:34Speaker 00

  Then, at 12:42 p.m., almost three and a half hours into Cooper’s ordeal, the CCTV footage captured something unexpected. Ross returned to his car. He opened the front driver’s side door and placed something inside before walking back into his office. Curiously, Ross had made no mention of this to the police, despite going into a lot of detail about everything else. When questioned about it, Ross explained that the friends he had gone out for lunch with that day worked around the corner from him. They’d picked him up, which they typically did,

• 29:15Speaker 00

  and taken him to one of their frequent eateries nearby. Afterwards, they all stopped into Home Depot so Ross could buy some light bulbs. Ross’s friends then dropped him back at his car and drove away.

• 29:31Speaker 00

  The CCTV footage showed Ross reach into the front driver's side of his vehicle and throw the bag of light bulbs inside without putting his head in or glancing into the backseat. He then closed the door two seconds later and walked away. The police weren't entirely sure what to make of this. The fact that Ross had withheld this information raised some questions about whether he could have returned to the vehicle to check that everything was going according to plan. Otherwise, if Ross had genuinely forgotten that Cooper was inside the vehicle, the police assumed this moment would have triggered his memory.

• 30:13Speaker 00

  And according to the medical examiner who performed Cooper's autopsy, it was possible that Cooper could have still been alive at this time. With members of the public debating over whether or not Ross Harris was guilty, Cooper was remembered at a funeral service paid for by Home Depot. Ross, who had been denied bail, was not allowed to attend. Instead, he called in from jail, listening in via speakerphone as Leanna Harris spoke publicly for the first time since Cooper's death.

• 30:52Speaker 00

  Leanna clarified to the 250 mourners gathered that she held no anger towards her husband. "It has never crossed my mind," she stated, prompting a round of applause. "Ross is, and was, and will be, if we have more children, a wonderful father. Ross is a wonderful daddy and leader for our household. Cooper meant the world to him."

• 31:22Speaker 00

  Leanna said that Cooper had been perfect. He changed their lives, turning things upside down in a way she wouldn't trade for the world. She recalled the last two nights of Cooper's life, where he ended up sleeping between her and Ross. "I remember turning over in the middle of the night," she said. "His mouth was open, and his full toddler lips just breathing right into my face. I will cherish that moment forever."

• 31:54Speaker 00

  Leaning on her Christianity for strength, Leanna continued:

• 32:00Speaker 00

  "Some of you might wonder how I'm even standing here today. I wonder that myself, and I asked myself that question over and over the last week. I should be crumpled into a heap of snot and tears into the dirt, but the Lord is holding me up right now. He is holding Ross up, and he is holding both of us up when we can't hold ourselves up."

• 32:26Speaker 00

  She said that Cooper was in the most peaceful, wonderful place there is.

• 32:33Speaker 00

  Leanna followed Cooper's casket out of the church, with Ross still on speakerphone. Before hanging up, she told him that she loved him. For those close to the Harris family, Leanna's impassioned show of support for Ross was further testament to their belief that he was being subject to a cruel injustice. But what they and the sympathetic public didn't know was that the police had uncovered evidence to suggest Ross wasn't who he painted himself to be.

• 33:15Speaker 00

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  When Ross Harris was first taken into custody, the detectives asked him for the passcode to unlock his cellphone. He stammered for a moment, saying he didn't know what it was, before saying he used a biometric sensor. Later in the interview, Ross said the passcode was his and Leanna's anniversary. His apparent reluctance to give the police access to his phone led them to suspect there was something on there he didn't want them to see. They obtained search warrants for Ross's work and home, where they seized a number of items, including his iPhone and several computers.

• 37:05Speaker 00

  What they uncovered revealed there was a very different side to Ross than he publicly portrayed. Electronic records revealed that he spent a significant amount of time using Whisper, an anonymous social networking app where users could post content, join interest groups, and send private messages without revealing their identity. Users were encouraged to share their intimate secrets with others able to then like or interact with those posts. Ross not only used Whisper to engage with posts, but as a means to contact other women.

• 37:45Speaker 00

  In the six months leading up to Cooper's death, Ross engaged in sexual conversations with at least thirty women. He spoke of his strong sexual desires, telling multiple users that he was addicted to sex. Ross told one woman that he used sex with strangers to keep him sane, writing to another: "I am a church guitar player, but I can lead somewhat of a double life."

• 38:15Speaker 00

  Over various conversations, Ross said that he missed being single, admitted to cheating on his wife, and said that he sometimes hated being married. "I just want to fuck a lot of girls, drink a lot, and have fun," he said. During a conversation on Christmas Day 2013, Ross told one woman that he cheats "a lot."

• 38:41Speaker 00

  When she asked him why he didn't get a divorce, he responded simply: "Kid."

• 38:48Speaker 00

  At 5:46 on the morning that Cooper died, Ross started his day by exchanging messages with at least three other women, one of which involved a conversation about oral sex. By the time Leanna left for work and Ross and Cooper were up watching cartoons, Ross continued messaging these women, writing to one of them: "You can come suck me today."

• 39:16Speaker 00

  He continued using Whisper during his breakfast with Cooper at Chick-fil-A and throughout his workday. From his office cubicle, Ross sent sexual messages to several women, asking two of them for pictures of their breasts. Both of them responded with the photos as requested. Over the course of an hour, Ross engaged in an intermittent sexual conversation with another woman, and then another, sending her a photo of his erect penis.

• 39:51Speaker 00

  All up, it turned out that Ross Harris had engaged in sexual conversations with at least six women on the day that Cooper died. Police managed to track these women down, as well as several others. After speaking with each of them, the true extent of Ross's so-called "double life" emerged. In early 2013, Ross started exchanging sexual messages with a 23-year-old college student named Alexandra. He never told her he was married or had a child, only that he had a girlfriend. Shortly after they started chatting online, Ross drove to Alexandra's dorm and took

• 40:34Speaker 00

  her out to a back road where they engaged in oral sex. They stayed in contact from that point onwards, but didn't meet again, with Ross sending Alexandra a photo of his erect penis just days before Cooper died. In May 2013, Ross started chatting online to an 18-year-old named Janey. They began talking on the phone too, some of their conversations being sexual in nature, and eventually, they both admitted they were falling in love. In August 2013, Ross unexpectedly showed up at a place he knew Janey was going to be.

• 41:17Speaker 00

  They kissed, but didn't meet in person again, although they stayed in contact and continued to express their love for one another. During their phone conversations, Janey could sometimes hear Cooper babbling away in the background. She once received a message from Ross that said: "If Cooper wasn't in the picture, I probably would have left my wife by now."

• 41:45Speaker 00

  That same summer, Ross struck up a conversation with a nineteen-year-old woman named Jacqueline after she posted on Whisper about seeing the erotic film Fifty Shades of Grey, and things immediately turned sexual between them. A few weeks later, Jacqueline went to Ross's house and the two had sex. They didn't meet again, but continued to talk online, with Ross encouraging Jacqueline to meet him for another rendezvous. In February 2014, Ross told Jacqueline that while on vacation, he'd met a man on Whisper and the two had relations.

• 42:24Speaker 00

  Also in early 2014, Ross started chatting online with a twenty-one-year-old woman named Elizabeth. A few weeks later, they met up in a parking lot and had sex in Ross's vehicle. They met up again in April 2014 and kissed.

• 42:43Speaker 00

  Ross and Elizabeth stayed in contact for five months, during which they racked up over forty-four pages of sexually explicit messages, with Ross explaining in graphic detail all of the things he wanted to do to Elizabeth. Ross began communicating with twenty-three-year-old Caitlin in June 2014. Knowing Ross was married, Caitlin once asked him if his conscience ever kicked in, but Ross responded simply: "Nope." On the morning of Wednesday, June 11, one week before Cooper died, Ross sent Caitlin a photo of his erect penis, and they discussed the possibility of her coming to his house after Leanna left for the day.

• 43:28Speaker 00

  Ross told Caitlin it would be risky, but that as long as they got to have sex, he was "game for risk."

• 43:38Speaker 00

  But there was one woman in particular who Ross contacted in the hours before Cooper died that really caught the attention of the police. Bella, not her real name, had been chatting to Ross on Whisper since late 2013. Most of their conversations were sexual in nature, with Ross repeatedly asking Bella to send him photos of her genitals. Bella refused every time, but that didn't stop Ross from sending her five separate photos of his erect penis over a three-month period, along with requests for oral sex. The messages Ross sent Bella used graphic sexual language, and he proposed sexual encounters

• 44:21Speaker 00

  using graphic detail, telling her what he planned to do to her: "Even if you say no." The problem was, at the time Ross first started communicating with Bella, she was only 16 years old. Bella told the police that Ross was aware of her age, as she'd told him shortly after they started chatting. This hadn't stopped Ross from engaging in sexual contact with Bella; instead, it seemingly encouraged him. Just weeks before Cooper died, Ross asked Bella to meet him in his car for her first experience with oral sex.

• 45:03Speaker 00

  While Cooper sat strapped into his car seat dying of heat stroke, Ross had asked Bella for a photo of her breasts. When she obliged, he responded: "Yummy," and asked yet again for a photo of her genitals. Given that Bella was a minor, the police charged Ross Harris with one count of attempting to commit sexual exploitation of a child, and two counts of dissemination of harmful material to a minor. But Bella wasn't the only minor Ross was speaking to.

• 45:40Speaker 00

  In May 2014, he had responded to a Whisper post that said “I love older men” by sending a picture of his erect penis. The user who posted it was a 15-year-old girl named Abby, not her real name. Abby initially told Ross she was 18, but she came clean about her real age quickly after the two started chatting. Undeterred, Ross told Abby, “Make me a naughty older guy,” and sent her graphic sexual messages. He also engaged in sexual conversations with two other minors.

• 46:21Speaker 00

  Further examination of Ross’s internet history revealed that 12 days before Cooper’s death, he’d cleared his Chrome browser cache. This removed all the data from websites Ross had previously visited, a move the police deemed “extremely suspicious.” However, he hadn’t cleared his Firefox browser. Records revealed that Ross had once Googled “how to survive in prison,” visited a subreddit group dedicated to living child-free, and also conducted over 800 searches for sex work services. In May 2014, he contacted a sex worker via her ad on the classified website Backpage

• 47:04Speaker 00

  and the two met for paid sex in the women’s hotel room on three occasions. Phone records revealed that during one of these encounters, Leanna texted Ross asking him to come home because she and Cooper missed him. Ross responded that he was helping a friend move house.

• 47:24Speaker 00

  With the full extent of Ross’s indiscretions coming to light, police believed a motive for Cooper’s murder was starting to emerge. It was apparent that Ross wanted to have sexual relationships with many other women, and his marriage to Leanna no doubt impeded that goal. But it was something else investigators found in Ross’s online history that really solidified this theory. At 8:55 on the morning of Cooper’s death, shortly before he and Cooper entered Chick-fil-A for breakfast, Ross viewed a post on Whisper that said: “I hate being married with kids. The novelty has worn off, and I have nothing to show for it.”

• 48:10Speaker 00

  Ross responded to the post, saying: "I miss having time by myself and going out with friends." The poster replied that she had nothing. All her energy went into being a perfect, underappreciated wife with two small kids. While she didn't resent her children, she did resent her husband. At 9:15 a.m., Ross wrote back: "My wife is upset when I want to go out with friends. I love my son and all, but we both need escapes."

• 48:49Speaker 00

  Just five minutes later, Ross left Chick-fil-A, strapped Cooper into his car seat, turned onto Cumberland Parkway, and headed straight to work instead of turning to Cooper's daycare. Ross was all too aware of how dangerous it was to leave a child in a parked car on a hot day. Not only had state childcare officials sent a generic email about it just two months earlier, but Ross had told the police about it himself during his interrogation, saying he'd just watched a video clip about it. Ross's internet history confirmed that just five days before Cooper died, he watched a video posted by a North Carolina vet named Dr. Ernie Ward,

• 49:34Speaker 00

  which aimed to raise awareness about the dangers of hot cars for pet owners. With the external temperature at 94 degrees Fahrenheit, or 34 degrees Celsius, Dr. Ward sat in his car with a timer and a thermometer and documented his experience for the camera. Even with all of the windows cracked open about an inch and a half, and a breeze blowing outside, it reached 100 degrees Fahrenheit, or 37 degrees Celsius, inside the vehicle within 10 minutes. Dr. Ward described the heat as stifling and almost unbearable. While he could see the trees arching in the breeze outside,

• 50:16Speaker 00

  he said he couldn't feel any semblance of that breeze, and was starting to wonder if this had been a really bad idea.

• 50:25Speaker 00

  By the thirty-minute mark, the internal temperature had soared to 113 degrees Fahrenheit, or forty-five degrees Celsius, and Dr. Ward was drenched in sweat. He said that everything in his body was telling him to "get out, get out, get out", and that he couldn't imagine how frightening this feeling would be for a helpless dog that had no idea when its owner was coming back.

• 50:52Speaker 00

  "You can make all the excuses you want", Dr. Ward concluded, "but those excuses are meaningless unless you have sat in that car during that time."

• 51:03Speaker 00

  The circumstantial evidence against Ross Harris was stacking up. Investigators had pieced together an image of a man who was unsatisfied in his marriage, yet felt compelled to stay because of his child. They believed Ross wanted to pursue his so-called "double life" without the burden of a wife or child, and he therefore staged Cooper's accidental death to rid himself of these burdens. It seemed almost impossible for them to believe that Ross could have forgotten about Cooper almost immediately after placing him in the car, especially given the close proximity of Cooper's head in relation to the driver's seat.

• 51:45Speaker 00

  It seemed equally implausible that Cooper had fallen asleep within just a couple of minutes. And even if Ross had genuinely forgotten about Cooper, he had several opportunities throughout his seven-hour workday to be reminded of the forgotten daycare drop-off. Not only did Ross physically return to the car after lunch, but he also texted Leanna about who was picking Cooper up.

• 52:13Speaker 00

  Investigators felt confident they had enough circumstantial evidence to secure a conviction against Ross Harris. There was just one problem.

• 52:26Speaker 00

  Staff at Cooper's daycare told the police that when Leanna Harris had arrived at the centre on the afternoon of Wednesday, June 18, 2014, to discover that Cooper wasn't there, one of the first things she said was: "Ross must have left him in the car, there's no other explanation."

• 52:47Speaker 00

  The staff had tried to reassure Leanna there could be many reasons why Ross hadn't dropped Cooper off that morning, but Leanna apparently insisted that he'd been left in the vehicle.

• 52:58Speaker 00

  When detectives then arrived at the lobby of Ross's office building to break the news to Leanna about what had happened, her reaction surprised them. They'd been expecting to find an emotional wreck, but Leanna had calmly followed them outside of the lobby as she sipped a coffee. A recorded conversation captured one of the detectives as he told Leanna: "There's really no easy way to tell you this. Your child is deceased. I'm very sorry to have to tell you that."

• 53:31Speaker 00

  Leanna showed little emotion. She didn't ask what had happened to Cooper, or ask to see him. Instead, she responded: "Where's my husband?"

• 53:43Speaker 00

  Leanna was taken to the police station to see Ross. Instead of asking him what happened, video cameras captured Leanna hugging and comforting him. When Ross told her that he was being charged with a crime, Leanna looked at him with concern and asked: "Did you say too much?" She continuously reassured Ross that everything was going to be okay, saying that Cooper was in heaven and his time on earth was done.

• 54:13Speaker 00

  "His belly was full of sausage biscuits and he fell asleep," she calmly reassured her husband. "We're going to get through this. We're going to be that couple that makes it through this, okay?"

• 54:28Speaker 00

  Ross replied: "I just don't want you to leave me, for anything. You're like my life support right now." Leanna responded softly: "I won't leave you. I love you. Look at me. I love you."

• 54:47Speaker 00

  At Cooper's funeral, Leanna told those gathered that she felt happy that Cooper wouldn't have to deal with some of life's letdowns, like his first heartbreak, school politics, or the death of his loved ones. "I miss him with all my heart," Leanna said. "Would I bring him back?" "No. To bring him back into this broken world would be selfish." When police had asked Leanna about her marriage, she said she and Ross sometimes felt financially stressed. A search of the couple's financial records revealed they had student loans, car loans, and about $4,000 of credit card debt.

• 55:31Speaker 00

  Text messages between the two also indicated that Leanna was unhappy about some purchases Ross had recently made. This made the police all the more suspicious when it was revealed that the Harrises had two life insurance policies for Cooper. The first was a $2,000 policy through Home Depot, and the second, purchased in November 2012, was for $25,000. Electronic records revealed it wasn't just Ross who had searched online for information about hot car deaths, but Leanna had too. Rumours started circulating about the possibility that Ross and Leanna had conspired in Cooper's

• 56:14Speaker 00

  death for financial gain. By the time the evidence was laid out during a three-hour probable cause hearing 15 days after Cooper's death, the public opinion on both Ross and Leanna Harris had shifted greatly. Although police made it clear that no charges were being filed against Leanna, social media went into overdrive, with an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporting: "Based on her own, sometimes confounding, words, along with evidence disclosed at her spouse's explosive probable cause hearing Thursday, many are wondering whether there's another side to Leanna Harris."

• 56:57Speaker 00

  Leanna Harris needs to be arrested, one woman wrote on Twitter. She is as guilty as he is. Another wrote: Look at those two twisted demons Cooper had for parents. God will get you and you will pay. Where are your tears, you scumbag?

• 57:18Speaker 00

  Someone commented to Ross on a YouTube clip of Cooper: I hope you and your ugly cud chewing cow wife burn in hell for murdering this baby. Another wrote to Leanna: I hope you and your husband rot in hell. I hope Cooper's screams haunt you until you finally cave and admit what you did.

• 57:44Speaker 00

  The public allegations took a massive toll on Leanna. Not only was she still coming to terms with the loss of her son, she was humiliated to find out about Ross's infidelity. Leanna claimed she knew nothing about her husband's online or real world affairs. She was aware that Ross had struggled with a pornography addiction back in 2008 and she'd once found a message on his phone asking a woman for pictures of her breasts. The two had sought help for these issues together, speaking with their pastor and going to couples therapy for a while.

• 58:23Speaker 00

  Then, in around December 2012, Leanna caught Ross watching pornography again and a few months later, she saw a suspicious text on his phone. They'd resumed therapy until things felt back on track. As far as Leanna was concerned, at the time of Cooper's death, Ross had all of these issues under control. She had no idea his behaviour had ever extended to full-blown infidelity and had she known, she would have sought a divorce.

• 58:56Speaker 00

  Leanna was also adamant that she had nothing to do with Cooper's death. She later explained to ABC's 2020 programme that she could understand why people might have thought her seemingly emotionless behaviour was suspicious because she couldn't quite understand it herself. "There's no way for someone to know how they would react", she explained. "Nothing about it felt real, nothing about it felt like it was happening, it just felt like a bad dream."

• 59:30Speaker 00

  Leanna explained that she had warmly embraced Ross at the police station because it never crossed her mind that he could have killed Cooper on purpose. She hadn't felt any anger towards him at that moment because she knew it was an accident and her priority was to provide him with support.

• 59:49Speaker 00

  She only asked Ross if he said too much to the police because she knew his personality and he, quote, "doesn't shut up". All she could think was, what could Ross have possibly said to make the police think that he had left Cooper in the car on purpose?

• 1:00:07Speaker 00

  Investigators ultimately concluded there was absolutely no evidence to suggest Leanna was involved in Cooper's death in any way, but that didn't stop the public and media scrutiny. Not only was Leanna struggling to deal with the grief of losing her son and now husband, she was unable to work and lost a long-running consulting job as a result of the media backlash. She returned to Alabama, filing for a divorce from Ross and going back to her maiden name. In a victim impact statement filed in August 2014, Leanna wrote that she was living a tortured existence in which she depended on the Lord for strength and support.

• 1:00:53Speaker 00

  "Whatever issues transpired in our marriage is between God and us, for He will judge those moral sins", she wrote.

• 1:01:02Speaker 00

  "The rush to judgement by the public and the mainstream media has left me with little confidence in our legal system and our society. The storm around my family has prevented us from grieving the right way, if there is a right way." Regardless of her feelings toward Ross, Leanna wanted to make one thing abundantly clear.

• 1:01:27Speaker 00

  "Ross was a wonderful father, and he loved Cooper with all of his heart," she wrote in the statement. "Because I saw how he treasured our little boy for 22 months, I know without a doubt he would never have knowingly allowed any harm to come to our son. I want you to know what a loving father he was."

• 1:01:50Speaker 00

  If found guilty, Ross was facing the possibility of the death penalty. Social media was filled with calls for his execution, with members of the public saying he should be left to die in a hot car like his son. For Ross's supporters, the revelations that had emerged at the probable cause hearing left them in a state of shock. The Ross presented in the police testimony was nothing like the Ross they knew. Many of them stuck by him regardless, adopting the tagline: "We're pro-Ross because we know Ross."

• 1:02:36Speaker 00

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• 1:04:39Speaker 00

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• 1:04:58Speaker 00

  For Ross Harris's supporters, the first and foremost reason they didn't believe Ross had intentionally left Cooper in the car was simple. He was, by all accounts, a caring and involved father who loved Cooper dearly and had never mistreated him in any way. Everyone said so, from Leanna to friends and family, to Cooper's daycare workers. Even the other women Ross had been sexting at the time Cooper died, believed that Ross genuinely loved his wife and son.

• 1:05:32Speaker 00

  Ross had told one of the women that he and his wife were having problems in the bedroom, but he never mentioned wanting to leave Leanna. He also proudly sent the woman pictures of himself and Cooper at a baseball game.

• 1:05:47Speaker 00

  Ross told another of the women that he was having problems in his marriage and that if his situation was different, he'd be with her instead of Leanna. But he also talked to her about how much he loved Cooper, saying his son was his life and that he wanted to be with Cooper for everything he did. Just five days before Cooper died, Ross told another of the women he was very happy in his marriage, except for the sexual aspect, because he was “too much of a sexual freak”.

• 1:06:21Speaker 00

  According to the woman who went to Ross’s house to have sex with him while Leanna was out, Ross loved his wife and didn’t want to end his marriage. He also clearly loved his son and never said a bad word about him. When the woman once asked Ross how his boy was doing, Ross responded enthusiastically “The best ever”, along with a photo of Cooper. He’d said similar things to Bella, the underage girl he was charged with exploiting, only ever talking about Cooper in positive ways and saying he loved his wife and would never leave her. On the morning that Cooper died,

• 1:07:03Speaker 00

  one of his online flings had asked how his son was doing, and Ross had happily replied “He’s awesome”.

• 1:07:15Speaker 00

  While Ross’s secret online history painted a very negative image of the outwardly presenting devoted family man, Ross’s supporters also believed his secret online activity proved he hadn’t intentionally killed Cooper. At the time of Cooper’s death, Ross and Leanna had been planning to take Cooper on a family cruise with Ross’s half-brother and his family. Just after midnight on the night before Cooper died, Ross had searched online about the cost of getting a child's passport. While Cooper sat dying in the car, Ross had received an email from a travel agent about the trip and had then spent some time searching online

• 1:07:57Speaker 00

  for information about one of the cruise lines the agent recommended. Not only did Ross's supporters believe this proved he was planning for a future with Cooper, they also thought his behaviour on the day Cooper died indicated he had no idea that his son was trapped in the hot car. Ross's coworkers said he'd acted completely normally that day, as had Leanna and the friends he'd gone to lunch with. Nothing he did or said was out of the ordinary, nor did he seem nervous or distracted. For Ross's supporters, the fact that he continued sending sexual messages to various women like he usually did was morally reprehensible,

• 1:08:41Speaker 00

  but it wasn't indicative of someone in the middle of a murder plot.

• 1:08:47Speaker 00

  They believed there was simply no way that Ross could have acted so nonchalantly if he knew the son he adored was slowly and painfully dying right outside his office. They also didn't believe that Ross would have made plans to go to the movies with friends after work if he knew that Cooper would be dead by then.

• 1:09:08Speaker 00

  Aside from the communication with other women, Ross's supporters didn't believe that his online activity was anywhere near as damning as investigators painted it to be. For starters, Ross having cleared his Chrome cache less than two weeks before Cooper died was standard practice for him and his coworkers. As web developers, they used Chrome frequently and often cleared the cache to see if a website change had been effective. Contrary to popular belief, there was no evidence to suggest that Ross had specifically sought out information about leaving children in hot cars or anything of that nature either.

• 1:09:49Speaker 00

  Leanna had warned him of the dangers back in early 2013, when she sent him an email with the subject line "Don't be this dad", and a link to a news story about a man in New York who accidentally left his baby in the car for eight hours. As for the video posted by veterinarian Dr Ernie Ward, this had appeared on a popular Reddit thread, and Ross had simply clicked on it, just like hundreds of other users. The subreddit Ross had visited dedicated to living a child-free lifestyle wasn't something he'd sought out either. A friend had posted about it in their group chat, and Ross had briefly visited the site, responding almost immediately in the group chat:

• 1:10:34Speaker 00

  "Grossness."

• 1:10:38Speaker 00

  The claims that Ross had searched for "how to survive in prison" also weren't accurate. A computer expert looked into Ross's search history and found that he'd actually searched for the term: "What is prison really like?" He'd done this after telling a friend he'd just finished watching a season of "Orange is the New Black", a fictional Netflix show set in a women's prison. Critics of Ross were quick to point out that Cooper was too big to still be in his rear-facing car seat. However, as Ross told police in his initial interrogation, he and Leanna had purchased a new forward-facing seat just two weeks before Cooper died.

• 1:11:22Speaker 00

  It was initially in Ross's car, but they'd switched it over to Leanna's vehicle so that Cooper would be more comfortable during a trip they took to Alabama. Leanna was also adamant that Cooper's head had still been at least two inches from the top of the car seat, making it suitable for a child of his size. A photo had been taken of Cooper in the car seat just under a month before he died, and it showed that the top of his head was not above the top of the car seat. Leanna said that Cooper hadn't experienced any significant growth spurts since that time.

• 1:12:03Speaker 00

  For Ross's half-brother, Michael, who worked as a police officer in Alabama, the very notion that Ross could have killed Cooper on purpose was preposterous. Sure, Ross could talk too much and be annoying at times, but if there was one thing Michael was certain of, it was that Ross loved Cooper more than life itself. The two were true buddies. For months, it was Ross who had hounded Michael about the possibility of taking their wives and children on a family cruise. Ross and Leanna had also been saving up to buy a four-bedroom house because they planned on having another baby before Cooper turned three. They'd been searching for a property in a good school district

• 1:12:48Speaker 00

  with a big backyard for Cooper to run around in. Michael told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "What parent does that unless they are planning for their kids?"

• 1:13:02Speaker 00

  After Cooper died, Michael came to Atlanta to help the Harrises through the tough time. Ross had given him full control of their bank accounts and he gained a complete understanding of the couple's finances. While they did have some lingering student and credit card debt, they also had about $6,000 in savings, always paid their bills on time, and had excellent credit. Michael told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "To say they were in financial trouble is just crazy." As for the suggestion that Ross could have killed Cooper to benefit from his life insurance policy, Michael said:

• 1:13:45Speaker 00

  "To think that he killed Cooper for $27,000 is a joke."

• 1:13:54Speaker 00

  By the time Ross Harris’s murder trial was scheduled to go ahead, it had to be moved 300 miles to Brunswick, Georgia, due to the intense local publicity surrounding the case. It took a further nine and a half days for the courts to carefully select the jury, with the trial finally commencing in October 2016, just over two and a half years after Cooper died. All up, Ross Harris faced eight charges in relation to malice murder, felony murder, cruelty to children, sexual exploitation of children, and dissemination of harmful materials to minors. Reporters swarmed around the courthouse, with viewers from all over the country tuning in

• 1:14:38Speaker 00

  to watch the televised livestream of the proceedings.

• 1:14:43Speaker 00

  The prosecution’s argument was straightforward. They described Ross as being obsessed with his sexual activities and online interactions to a point that he was prepared to take risk after risk. He intentionally and maliciously left Cooper to die in the car so he could free himself from his self-imposed prison and pursue his double life. By removing their child from the equation, the prosecution said Ross hoped to then divorce Leanna and achieve his dreams of having sexual relationships with the women he met online.

• 1:15:20Speaker 00

  They presented evidence to support their belief that there was no way Ross could have forgotten about Cooper’s presence during the four-minute drive to his work from Chick-fil-A. To get from Chick-fil-A to Ross’s office, he had to turn right out of the restaurant and onto a side road. Then, he had to turn right onto Cumberland Parkway, cross through two lanes to get to the left-turn lane, make a U-turn, and then continue straight. To get to Cooper’s daycare, he had to do the same U-turn, but then immediately move into the left lane and turn left.

• 1:15:58Speaker 00

  Investigators who had driven this route themselves testified that the maneuvers leading up to that U-turn took no more than forty seconds. This essentially gave Ross just forty seconds to forget that his son was in the car, despite them having just spent twenty minutes dining together and Cooper's head being just inches away from Ross in the driver's seat. The defense argued that Ross was a loving father who had never mistreated Cooper and had no intention of ending his marriage. He had simply had a momentary lapse in memory on the morning of Wednesday, June 18, 2014, which had tragic consequences.

• 1:16:42Speaker 00

  Dr. Jean Brewer, an expert in human memory systems, testified that it was entirely possible that Ross could have forgotten about Cooper in that forty-second timeframe leading up to the U-turn. He explained to the jury that it all came down to prospective memory, which is the type of memory that allows a person to remember what they are going to do next. If a prospective memory goal goes against routine behavior, Dr. Brewer explained that an individual can lapse into their routine behavior and forget their prospective memory goal in a matter of seconds, especially when they are distracted by things like fatigue, stress, or external events.

• 1:17:27Speaker 00

  Ross had gone to bed late the night before, as was evident in his phone activity, and then woken up early to tend to Cooper. Colleagues also testified that he'd had a stressful project on the go at work. Dr. Brewer said that these factors, combined with the immediate distraction of the complicated U-turn, could have all played a role in Ross forgetting that Cooper was in the car. Given that he dropped his son off at daycare most days, Ross could have created a false memory of having dropped Cooper off that morning too. Therefore, when potential triggers arose, such as him discussing the pickup with Leanna

• 1:18:09Speaker 00

  or putting the light bulbs in his car, there was nothing to signal to Ross that anything was different or strange about the situation.

• 1:18:19Speaker 00

  The defence said that various factors, such as Ross searching for the cost of child passport fees at work that day, looking up family crew's information, and planning to see a movie with friends that evening, were not indicative of someone who was planning to or actively engaging in killing his son in a slow and painful way. He didn't try to isolate himself, but interacted with co-workers, went to lunch with friends, and went about his online activities as per usual. At no point did he do anything to indicate he was aware of what was unfolding in his car outside.

• 1:19:02Speaker 00

  The prosecution called various members of law enforcement and witnesses who testified to Ross Harris's strange behaviour at the scene of Cooper's death and at the police station afterwards. However, upon cross-examination, these witnesses acknowledged that they didn't know Ross personally or how he typically responded to traumatic events. Prosecutors also called multiple women who either had extramarital sex with Ross or engaged in sexually explicit online conversations with him, including one sex worker and two minors. Each of the women seemed embarrassed and uncomfortable as they provided their testimony, particularly when they were asked to read aloud

• 1:19:47Speaker 00

  some of the vulgar messages that Ross had sent them. However, upon cross-examination, none of the women provided any evidence to suggest that Ross wanted to rid himself of his parenting responsibilities. On the contrary, several of them testified that Ross had only ever spoken about Cooper in loving terms, and they believed him to be an adoring father.

• 1:20:12Speaker 00

  Ross waived his right to testify in his own defence, but he had a powerful supporter. His now ex-wife Leanna appeared on the stand as a witness for the defence, saying that while the side of Ross's personality that had since been revealed might have made him a lousy husband, he was never anything but a devoted father to Cooper. "He wanted to be the one to push him on a swing", Leanna said. "He wanted to be the one to slide down the slide with him. He wanted to enjoy every second he could with him." The defence asked Leanna if Ross loved his little boy. "Yes, he did", she replied. "Very much."

• 1:20:59Speaker 00

  Asked how she felt about her ex-husband now, Leanna looked right at Ross as she said: "He ruined my life. He destroyed my life. I'm humiliated. I may never trust anybody again. If I never see him again after this day, that's fine."

• 1:21:19Speaker 00

  By the time closing arguments were delivered, the media had run wild with stories about Ross Harris's secret sex life. The prosecution told the jury that Ross had closed the door on Cooper's life because of his own selfishness. "This isn't a case about an adult hating a child", they said. "It's just that Ross loved himself and his other obsession more than that little boy."

• 1:21:50Speaker 00

  The trial ran for 26 days, with over 70 witnesses providing testimony and 1,200 pieces of evidence being presented, before the jury was left to deliberate.

• 1:22:03Speaker 00

  It had been a difficult and emotionally charged time for the jury members. Throughout the trial, they’d been shown upwards of seventy photographs of Cooper and Ross spending good times together, and multiple home videos that showed Cooper happily interacting with his parents. Some of the footage provoked their smiles and laughter, while others held back tears. The jury deliberated for three and a half days before delivering the verdict. For the malicious murder of Cooper, as well as the remaining charges against him, Ross Harris was found guilty on all eight counts.

• 1:22:45Speaker 00

  Ross showed little emotion as the verdict was delivered, but as the news spread, public reaction was mixed. Some felt the evidence presented had worked in Ross’s favour, and were genuinely shocked to find that he’d been found guilty. Others were vindicated in their belief that Ross had been guilty all along, with one official telling reporters outside court: “I believe categorically and unequivocally that justice has been served here today.”

• 1:23:18Speaker 00

  Ross Harris was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for malice murder, and consecutive sentences of twenty years for first-degree child cruelty, ten years for attempt to commit sexual exploitation of a child, and one year for each count of dissemination of harmful material to a minor.

• 1:23:40Speaker 00

  Leanna was devastated. Hearing her opinion in a Facebook post, she wrote: “For those of you who want to know if I am okay, the answer is no. I have not been okay since the moment I was told my son was dead. I have not been okay since the moment my life was put on this path that has led to Ross being found guilty of maliciously murdering our child.” So now you may be saying, “Justice has been served”, and you are allowed your right to that opinion. But guess what? You can convict every parent that this has ever happened to, and I can promise you two things:

• 1:24:23Speaker 00

  Number one, it will never bring our children back; and number two, it will not prevent this from happening in the future.”

• 1:24:32Speaker 00

  Next summer, as this begins to happen over and over again, ask yourself what can be done. The problem is not the parent. The problem is a society that refuses to believe this can happen to them. Wake up, accept it, and by accepting it, you will be protecting your child.

• 1:24:57Speaker 00

  Ross Harris's guilty verdict sparked debate among legal circles. Regardless of personal opinion, many felt uneasy about the way the prosecution handled the case. Questions were raised about why the evidence of Ross's extramarital affairs, inappropriate communications with minors, and his hiring of a sex worker were allowed to be presented at a trial for the murder of a child.

• 1:25:25Speaker 00

  Prosecutors had even presented the jury with nine enlarged photos of Ross's erect penis as proof of the sexual images he had sent to various women. While many felt this did a good job at tarnishing Ross's character, it did little to prove he was a killer.

• 1:25:44Speaker 00

  As far as Ross's legal team was concerned, the evidence of Ross's deviant sexual behaviour should never have been allowed to be presented to the jury in the first place. Not only did they believe it was highly prejudicial and therefore made it impossible for Ross to have received a fair trial, but it didn't do anything to prove that Ross had intentionally killed his son.

• 1:26:08Speaker 00

  In January 2017, they filed a motion for a retrial, but their request was denied.

• 1:26:16Speaker 00

  In January 2022, Ross was permitted to appeal his case to the Georgia Supreme Court. His legal team argued before the panel of nine judges that the trial court abused its discretion by admitting the extensive evidence of Ross's extramarital activities, specifically his lewd exchanges with minors, his decision to hire a sex worker, and the photos of his penis. The prosecution told the court it was necessary to present this information as it was intrinsic to some of the charges against Ross and it also helped establish their theory about his motive for killing Cooper. For example, his hiring a sex worker in May 2014

• 1:27:01Speaker 00

  showed where his priorities lay and how his behaviour was escalating in the lead-up to Cooper's death.

• 1:27:09Speaker 00

  The Supreme Court handed down a 155-page report examining the case against Ross Harris in detail. The report pointed out that a man doesn't typically enhance his ability to pursue sexual relationships with women by killing his young child. Furthermore, when a married man wants to pursue a relationship with other women, he typically does so by cheating, getting a divorce, or, in criminal situations, by murdering his partner, not his child. The report stated that there was no evidence that Ross viewed Cooper as an obstacle to his sexual conquests and therefore Ross's obsession with having sexual liaisons with many women

• 1:27:53Speaker 00

  lacked a logical and necessary link to the alleged crimes against Cooper. The report also pointed out that Ross had already been meeting various women for sex since early 2013, so hiring a sex worker in May 2014 was trivial when it came to the prosecution's case for murder. As one judge told the prosecutor at the appeal hearing: "I will say you did a remarkable job of proving Ross is a terrible person, but proving he is a terrible person isn't the same as proving he murdered his child."

• 1:28:32Speaker 00

  Ultimately, the panel of judges ruled 6 to 3 that the evidence regarding Ross's extramarital affairs had an extremely unfair prejudicial impact on the jury. While it showed that Ross was "a philanderer, a pervert, and even a sexual predator", it did little, if anything, to answer the key question of his intent when he closed the car door on Cooper that fateful day.

• 1:28:59Speaker 00

  The Supreme Court upheld Ross’s conviction for sexual exploitation of children, a felony crime for which he had been sentenced to 10 years in prison, as well as the two misdemeanor accounts of dissemination of harmful material to a minor, each of which came with a one-year custodial sentence.

• 1:29:18Speaker 00

  But they reversed the convictions relating to the crimes against Cooper, concluding:

• 1:29:25Speaker 00

  “Because the properly admitted evidence that Ross Harris maliciously and intentionally left Cooper to die was far from overwhelming, we cannot say that it is highly probable that the erroneously admitted sexual evidence did not contribute to the jury’s guilty verdicts. We cannot say for sure what was going through Ross’s mind when he shut the Tucson’s door on the morning of June 18, 2014, and sealed Cooper’s fate. We do not know whether he planned and executed the horrific murder of his 22-month-old son by leaving him to suffer and slowly die in a hot vehicle, or rather, if he made a tragic, fatal mistake by forgetting that the child,

• 1:30:08Speaker 00

  whom by almost all accounts he loved and cherished, was in the backseat.”

• 1:30:16Speaker 00

  While Ross Harris continued to serve the remaining four years of his sentence for the crimes against a minor, the county district attorney began a thorough review of his case file in preparation for a retrial for Cooper’s murder.

• 1:30:31Speaker 00

  Then, in May 2023, the DA’s office made a shocking announcement. They released a statement that read: “Crucial motive evidence that was admitted at the first trial in 2016 is no longer available to the state due to the majority decision of the Supreme Court. Therefore, after much thought and deliberation, we have made the difficult decision to not retry Justin Ross Harris on the reversed counts of the indictment. Cooper will always be remembered by this office and those who fought for him.”

• 1:31:10Speaker 00

  This meant that Ross just had to see out the remainder of his sentence for the crimes against a minor, and would face no further action for his role in Cooper's death. For Leanna, this was very welcome news. Despite everything she'd been through, she was still unwavering in her belief that Ross did not intend to kill Cooper. Leanna hoped that the charges being dismissed would help change the way her son was remembered. In a statement released by her lawyer, Leanna reiterated that Cooper was wanted, loved, and missed every single day. "While this will not change anything about my day-to-day life,

• 1:31:54Speaker 00

  I do hope it shows people what those closest to the case have been saying from the beginning," Leanna said. Ross was a loving and proud father to Cooper. At the same time, Ross was being a terrible husband. These two things can and did exist at the same time.

• 1:32:17Speaker 00

  Changing the narratives surrounding Cooper's death had always been of utmost importance to Leanna, who still couldn't bring herself to wash the cup that Cooper last drank from on the morning that he died. She felt very strongly that he deserved to have a better legacy than the boy whose father intended to kill him. Leanna told 2020 that someone once left a card on Cooper's grave that said: "I'm sorry that you weren't loved in this life, Cooper. If you had been my son, I would have loved you." This broke Leanna's heart. "It's hard enough to lose your child," she said.

• 1:32:58Speaker 00

  "But then to have people think that you didn't love him and that you didn't want him, that's something that should never have been added to the equation of having to bury your baby."

• 1:33:10Speaker 00

  In the years since Cooper died, dozens of American children had continued to die in the same way every year. Leanna felt very strongly that wasting precious resources prosecuting the parents of these tragic accidents was not the answer. She urged legislators to instead put money into developing new laws that would require all child car seats to be equipped with alarms, like was already being done in other countries. As Associate Professor of Law Erica Brightfeld explained in her article about Forgotten Baby Syndrome for the Berkeley Journal of Criminal Law: “The market is not short on devices and initiatives that parents can use to remind

• 1:33:54Speaker 00

  them of their baby in the car. But, interestingly, none of these products are what parents think about when they are preparing for the child’s arrival, hence these products remain unknown to most parents.” Further, parents who are aware of these products think they have no need for them because they believe incorrectly that they could never forget their child in the car. This is why the prosecuting attorneys, through community prosecution, must educate the community and shape awareness about the risk all parents face. Car safety officials recommend various ways that parents can protect their children against Forgotten Baby Syndrome.

• 1:34:38Speaker 00

  One: Set up an agreement with your childcare provider to have them notify you if your child doesn’t arrive at their usual drop-off time. Two: Set a reminder on your phone to check in with your partner to make sure they have dropped the child off. Three: Create a visual reminder for yourself by placing your child’s bag, jacket, or hat on the front passenger seat, or force yourself to go to the back seat by placing your own bag, lunch, or laptop there every day.

• 1:35:12Speaker 00

  Ross Harris was released from jail in June 2025. The matter of whether or not he intentionally left Cooper in his car that day remains a topic of public debate. It's an experience that some other parents who have faced a similar tragedy can relate to. Erica Brightfeld explains this is because, "When a child dies from a hot car death, we have a visceral response to blame someone. Someone must have done something wrong for a child to have suffered, and this is a natural, normal reaction. But it does not mean it is the right one."

• 1:35:53Speaker 00

  Neuroscientist Dr. David Diamond echoes this sentiment. Speaking about forgotten baby syndrome to Washington Post journalist Jean Weingarten, Dr. Diamond said, "Memory is a machine, and it is not flawless. Our conscious mind prioritizes things by importance, but on a cellular level, our memory does not. If you're capable of forgetting your cellphone, you are potentially capable of forgetting your child."

• 1:36:26Speaker 00

  After studying various cases involving hot car deaths and speaking to many survivors of similar tragedies, Jean Weingarten concluded, "There may be no act of human failing that more fundamentally challenges our society's views about crime, punishment, justice, and mercy."

• 1:36:49Speaker 00

  While Ross Harris's lawyer said that Ross has always accepted the moral responsibility for Cooper's death, the truth about what went through his mind back in June 2014 is something only Ross knows for sure.

• 1:37:04Speaker 00

  As Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice David E. Nemeius wrote in Ross's appeal report, "This is, in many ways, an extraordinary case. In the dozens of murder cases this court considers each year, rarely do we see a case in which diametrically opposed conclusions could be reached by fair-minded jurors from the same evidence. A fair reading of the cold appellate record presents logical, common sense cases both for Harris's guilt and his innocence. Was he the heartless, sex-crazed killer of the state's telling, or a deeply

• 1:37:44Speaker 00

  flawed but loving father overwhelmed by the demands of life and work, whose worst day resulted in his most costly mistake?"

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